


Beautiful

by emiltee



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Female Jack, GTA AU, Gun Violence, Hurt No Comfort, Immortal Fake AH Crew, M/M, Mentions of Domestic Terrorism, Michael-centric, Reincarnation, implied depression, suicidal behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 06:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14130426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emiltee/pseuds/emiltee
Summary: Everything beautiful ends, and Los Santos and the crew are a masterpiece.He thinks that they'll go out like a rocket, bright and dazzling and deadly and leaving nothing but scorched earth in their wake.Rated Mature for violent themes, nothing else. Could be T, but I'd rather be safe.





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up, I found this in my old folders, and it's a doozy. I hope. I'm guessing I originally wrote it just to write, not to share, but I like the way it came out.
> 
> For real though, tw for gun violence, canon-typical violence and anti-law enforcement violence. One of the crew members is branded as a terrorist, and this is not a branding others argue with. Sad as all hell.

There's very little Michael is sure of, his fifth time surviving what should've been certain death, with flaky blood on his knuckles, and blotches of purple and brown soaked through and crusting on bandages around his ribs.

He lives like he's immortal. They all do.

There's very little any of them would take for granted, but Michael lives his life by a rule he would consider his only truth: Everything beautiful ends, and Los Santos and the crew are a masterpiece.  
He thinks that they'll go out like a rocket, bright and dazzling and deadly and leaving nothing but scorched earth in their wake.

He spends his days waiting for it to end, for it to be over, fully aware that he can’t very well appreciate every moment if he’s just waiting to die. But he can’t shake the anticipation, like he’s running on adrenaline every moment of the day.  
He fights to forget and waits for it to be over.

They live a combination of philosophies. Michael watches Gavin and Geoff play games and spend insane amounts of money on food and trinkets, acting like the world is ending every night, for weeks on end.  
Then, he sees Geoff stop, with no warning and no measure of reluctance. Sees him read and collect libraries instead, like he’s planning on hitting everything before he goes. He asks, one night, and Geoff answers that if they’re eventually the only ones left, he wants to remember everything about humanity, every story, every idea, every lost moment- he wants to know that people had something worth it all. It’s followed by awkward silence, then a chuckle. The night remains silent as they stare out at the city, until Michael leaves the room.  
Gavin stops panicking more slowly. Michael watches him stop caring. They’re found out because of Gavin, because he gets shot in the stomach one afternoon and just continues negotiating with the now-enemy gang. He won’t heal- he will bleed out until his body gives up, and wake up healed, if covered in bloody clothes. It just isn’t important enough to stop. He can just die and reset, why seek medical attention to heal a body only to spend weeks unable to use it fully? The shooter aims for his head, and Michael watches him wink, as he loudly laments how inconvenient a head wound would be, blood gathering at the corners of his mouth. He sits back up half an hour later, surrounded by several corpses, a few terrified gang members, and an impatient Michael. He grins at Michael, and Michael is glad they can finally head home, but Gavin immediately turns to the remaining lead member and continues where he left off.

He watches Jack start making an effort to leave civilians unharmed, to donate extra money to hospitals, to single-handedly fund the orphanages and Children's centers of Los Santos. It’s not notable until she starts bringing in targets with very little profit to be made, or shooting down ideas that could bring good people into danger. Geoff wants to do a run on a prison to break out some allies of an ally, she comes up with a plan to workaround a breakout and simply make the charges look false. And though it’s more likely to fail, it keeps other inmates safe. Ryan wants to do a smear campaign on one of Geoff’s rivals, she comes back with a folder of assault and abuse allegations from his employees and ex-wife, saying only that she’s been watching him for some time. When pressed she's not clear whether she’s trying to atone for her wrongdoings before some looming judgement day, or trying to make the world a better place since she'll be in it for the foreseeable future. He gets the feeling she doesn't know.  
He watches Ryan try to adapt his unique, but mortality based, belief system into an even more unique and personally tailored doctrine. It wouldn't be out of place at all, but he watches in the dim glow of Ryan’s phone, when he thinks Michael had fallen asleep, as Ryan googles phrases that he used to treat like serious questions, like “is death all that separates man from god” and “is the concept of God just a very powerful man”. Even more representative of the changes the crew is going through: Ryan doesn't hum thoughtfully or scoff like he normally did when confronted with different theologies. He just chuckles. He never seems to reach a conclusion though, and Ryan’s previously agnostic but devoted system morphs into a restless want for answers he’s pretty sure Ryan has given up believing in the existence of.

Michael expects to watch Jeremy retreat further into his own physical power, much like Michael did. Instead he watches as Jeremy takes assignments they'd never have let him take alone before, but jobs filtered by his skills instead of his eagerness. He also watches as the previously reckless Jeremy carefully wraps his own wounds after each job, notices when he starts pestering others to take better care of physical injuries. He watches Jeremy finally start taking caution with his life now that there doesn't seem to be much risk of losing it. Michael, as close as they are, can’t glean answers from him, but his constant push to take on incrementally harder, but still survivable missions turns Jeremy from ‘pretty good at his job’ to an efficient machine. He still fucks up, but he tells Michael it’s all intentional. That he’s more aware of his limits, he’s learning how to push them, so he can survive even if they stop coming back to life. “Dying was the worst. I don’t. I don’t want to die, ever. And I want to make sure we’re safe, you’re safe, if we ever have to worry about it again.”

He watches as last meals on death row become a constant daily routine that binds them. He watches the crew live every night like it is simultaneously their last on earth and one of an unlimited supply.  
They've always lived like life was fleeting, and it translates oddly to their poorly understood immortality. Like someone trying to insert a lego into an unfinished puzzle.  
It is, in its own way, beautiful. So it must end.

He waits for it to be over, but at least he won’t be alone.

 

Jeremy goes first.  
It’s more bitter than Michael can imagine- he’d told Michael ahead of time he would be dying that night, to make sure no one was waiting on him. He’d said he wanted to test his stealth capabilities, and wanted to see how long he could make it. Getting an accurate time meant he’d get caught- if he ran or bailed, he wouldn’t know.  
He’d actually made it back to the penthouse, both arms broken and half his fingers missing. They’d seen a lot of shit, but it was still disconcerting to see his head close shaven to the point of razor burns.  
Thing was, they weren’t comic book characters. They were more like shitty video game characters. He’d either heal the long way, or just respawn as himself a few hours ago. He elected for the latter but gently raised his arms and hands, incapable of shooting a gun. Geoff took him into the soundproofed room they had just for this type of thing and pulled the trigger for him.  
Michael had patted him on the back. “See you in a few hours, J.” He'd just silently hoped Jeremy would come out of it with hair.

They’d just pulled out the UNO cards and sat at the kitchen table, laughing and chilling as dinner cooked. But Jeremy hadn’t come out yet.

Michael avoided doing the dishes to dip into the room in the back of the penthouse, walking over to Jeremy, slumped against a wall. He was cold.  
They’d never gotten cold before.

He swallowed and left the room, and bit his tongue for the night. Waited, restless, for his door to open, the muted swearing he’d come to associate with getting ready for sleep. For the heavy dip in the mattress that should come any moment.  
But in the morning the body was stiff, the splatter of blood powdery.

He couldn’t bring himself to leave the room again, and just tucked himself next to Jeremy and waited for a heartbeat.  
Another day passed before Jack came in with a mop and a bucket, frozen in the door when she looked up.  
“We thought you two went out when he woke up.”

Michael doesn’t answer, he just looks at her.

“Did he... why would he shoot himself again?”  
“He didn’t.”

Jack slowly leans the mop against the wall, before walking over at a similar pace. Michael watches her pick up Jeremy’s now limp hand, watches her face flitter between emotions, and swallows the desire to push her away from the body.  
Her eyebrows settle, and she sighs, relieved. “If he were really gone, he’d be in rigor mortis by now, right? That’s a shitty joke.”

He can’t even meet her eyes when he tells her that he had been. Reminds her that the next stage is this, this horrible heat and limpness.

She walks out of the room shakily, out of his view, but he can hear her in the bathroom around the corner, retching. The noise alerts the others in the penthouse that something might be wrong, and on Ryan’s way to Jack, he passes the open door. One by one, they file by, and the small vigil in the room grows until the entire crew is there, waiting. Gavin sits in the hall, unable to look or come near Jeremy, and it’s honestly pretty understandable.

An hour passes before Michael leaves the room, the feel of the body slowly decomposing on his shoulder too much too handle. Changing clothes doesn’t help. Showering doesn’t help. 3 months pass and he still feels that heat on his side, pressing into him and ruining the only one of them who was prepared for this moment, turning his memories of warmth rancid.

Geoff goes next, unsurprisingly. He doesn’t get risky or stupid, like Gavin and Ryan, but their jobs are inherently dangerous and it seems sacrilegious to stop now. He gets shot doing crowd control in a heist at the Maze Bank. It’s stupid- they should’ve checked that none of the patrons had weapons on them, but they must’ve missed one.  
He dies 6 days later, with his prognosis declining from “He’ll be fine.” to “He’s not going to be fine at all.” in just a few hours on day 3. Sepsis. Nothing Kerry tries makes a difference. They wait with baited breath outside his door for a few more days, but he doesn’t come back.

The dwindling numbers mean even normally safe jobs are risky as fuck, but no one seems to care. Going on easy ally negotiations gets harder- Jeremy and Geoff may have been equals, but people outside of the crew didn’t always understand that. Two members dead in a month, especially when one’s their figurehead, it makes them weak. Other crews take that advantage.

They mug Gavin. He’d gone for a motorcycle ride, shedding his phone and trackers in the garage. It would be silly a few months ago, except they only find him 3 days after he’d gone missing, when Ryan stumbles across his body in a dumpster, stripped of valuables and cold to the touch.  
Ryan comes back to the apartment, but Michael never heard him speak again. The penthouse feels too big, and the space left by Jeremy, Geoff, and Gavin is filled with anticipation and quiet.

They move to one of Michael’s old safehouses, a shitty apartment outside the city. It’s cramped and tense, but it smushes the rough edges left by their lost crewmates together, makes the empty parts of their hearts feel smaller. They’ve all lost family, they’ve all lost the loves of their lives, but at least they’re still here, filling up this tiny, terrible 2 bedroom walk-up. Dinners go from non-existent, to tense, to reminiscing.

There’s no room on the table for the extra plates he kept accidentally putting out back in the penthouse, and with the living room so tight, Ryan’s silence is covered by the echoes of Jack and his own voice. It’s far from beautiful, but he thinks, now, they might be okay. They’ll scale down, take easy jobs. Maybe even go civilian, if it’s the only way he can get Ryan to stop looking so empty whenever he goes out on a hit. And if the hurting never stops, at least they’ve left something to prove what they used to be.

He’d expected Jack to take charge, but as time goes on, he takes over. She lets him. Geoff had used to joke, before they’d ever died once, that when the Gents retired, Michael would be in charge. And while Ryan looks close to broken, Jack’s eyes just look tired. So he decides he’ll do it, be the leader Geoff thought he could be.

He stops fighting so hard, stops being the brawn on missions. Makes sure he’s able to think and call directives if someone gets in a bind. They aren’t who they used to be, but they’re still half of the Fake Crew. They were, in every iteration, a well-oiled machine, and now they’re bent on vengeance against a world that lent them time at such a steep interest rate.

He picks up a job at a seedy bar, but Jack decides to sit it out. He and Ryan finish it pretty easily, and find out Jack had been joy-riding around the city.

She gets caught by the LSPD. Her trial is long and public and horrible. Her lawyer is the best Michael and Ryan can afford, but they still can’t make 12 civilians suddenly forget that robbing banks is illegal. Ryan manages to get into the jury pool, but gets dismissed because he’d used his cover that was a stay-at-home dad, hoping to avoid any workplace links to places they’d hit. But his fake kid had gone to a school Jack had donated millions of dollars to under an alibi, and they hadn’t even noticed. The prosecutor had.

Jack was public about her opinions once she had a platform as #2 on the FIB’s Most Wanted, and openly targeted corrupt politicians and government officials. Turns out a life of crime gets a lot of twitter followers. Gavin had always covered their tracks, so she’d posted as herself openly and angrily.

Michael watched as prosecutors read her tweets and manifestos aloud. Watched as they explained how a citizen could rack up so many criminal charges to the jury. Watched, with horror, as they explained- Jack Pattillo was a domestic terrorist. And the worst part was, he was pretty sure they were right.  
The jury and judge agreed.

Jack wouldn’t die for another 2 years, but they didn’t have the resources or connections to break her out anymore. She was interviewed by NNC, streamed live online, right before they’d transferred her to a maximum security prison to await her execution.

At the last moment, she’d turned to the camera.  
“Don’t worry, guys, I understand. Don’t come after me, don’t do anything stupid. Stay safe.”  
The interviewer had looked confused, but Jack refused to explain. Everyone was clearly a bit uncomfortable, and just as the stream ended, she’d thrown up her arms and yelled “THIRD PLACE! SUCK IT!” at the screen.

People in the chat took their bets on who’d get second.

Jack’s execution date was public. The event wasn’t, but when it happened, it made the news.

Ryan disappeared, and he never came back. It was somehow worse, not knowing if he was alive or dead. He’d left his share of their money and most of his explosives behind, so Michael’s next move was obvious. Even if Ryan had planned on living, he left behind the most important part of Michael’s plan: Gavin and Jeremy’s (probably expired) stash of firecrackers.

Their lives had been beautiful, so they’d had to end- And maybe they hadn’t been beautiful people, maybe they hadn’t done beautiful things. But the whirlwind of their relationships, the chaos they’d left behind, the destruction and rebirth of their city had been _fucking majestic_ , and no one could convince him otherwise.

He waits for a few months to get everything together, makes a day of it. Part of him hopes Ryan will come back and stop him, but on the anniversary of Jeremy’s death an unidentified man had walked into the LSPD Headquarters with 3 layers of heavy body armor, a skull mask, and a minigun, and taken out half the force before leaving a body so mutilated it was unidentifiable. Without proof, he can’t squash the hope that it was an imposter or a copy-cat. Some bizarre and vengeful fan. Still.

Michael, likewise, goes up in a blaze of glory, dropping by the penthouse still pulling rent from Geoff’s sizeable bank account, and picks up the fastest car he can find. The Fake AH Crew hasn’t struck fear into hearts in nearly a year, but his old mechanic is still happy to paint their logo on the hood of a car that’s registration is clearly out of date. Especially when Michael tips him so well.  
The sky in Los Santos has always amazed him- today, it decides to shift into orange and purple (complemented by some less important yellows and pinks) as the sun sets against the skyscrapers.

Driving so fast that he has to squint, dropping both lit, dangerous, crackling cargo and stacks of non-sequential bills out the back of the convertible, and squealing to a stop in front of the IAA building makes his heart race like he’s still alive, like he hasn’t been dead for three years. If he doesn’t think too hard, he can pretend the back seat isn’t empty, that someone has his back. He can almost feel the hand on his shoulder, almost hear the squawking and howling laughter he still expects to come over a comm he isn’t wearing.

The stars are just peeking out as he busts down the front door, bolting for the stairs.

He makes it into the server rooms, by some incredible stroke of luck. He smashes a few that he knows from intel contain dirt on FakeAH allies- Matt and Trevor and the B team are probably still out there somewhere. He knows Kerry and Miles are doing well. And their old friends at Rooster Teeth probably deserve something for the shit they put up with. It won’t do much, he imagines they have back-up, but he’s here, so he may as well.

The rest that he could reach, the ones he knew had info about UFOs or corruption or money laundering or covered up scandals?  
Gavin had written a program years ago, one that could enter these servers. One that, if introduced on site, could upload the information on them to as many websites as possible before destroying the server a few moments later- it was almost humorously thorough. Conspiracy sites and twitter would be easy to handle, but Gavin had included everything from CNN Article comments to Neopet’s forums. At that moment, every forum and accessible blog, every form of Fake AH social media now long defunct would get a post detailing the craziest shit Gavin’s sweeper could find. He’d laughed when Gavin titled it “Armageddon”, but they’d all agreed it was a fitting name.

Michael was going to wreak havoc, the world was going to be irreparably different for what he’d done. He just didn’t know how, when he surrounded himself with C4 and waited for the first soldiers to peek around the servers.

He would never find out, and he was unreasonably excited about that.

 

 

 

 

He wakes up sputtering, phantom coughs wracking his body as he lays in the dirt, 20 feet outside the electrified fence of the destroyed IAA building. The sky is dark, filled with stars, and the city sits behind his feet, lit up and vibrant. The sirens and flashing lights don’t quite match the mood, but they fade as he lies back and waits.

He is alone, and he is alive, and it is over.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry. 
> 
>  
> 
> Who am I kidding? I'm not sorry. If you like it, or have any suggestions, please comment! (I probably won't edit, since this was more a personal fic than something I intended to publish, but I'm always open to learning.)


End file.
